Multiple Domain optimization
-
Hello all,
I'm a bit new to this, though I'd like to think I'm a fast learner when it comes to IT related stuff...as I've been doing it for long enough.
Here's my question. I have a non-profit corporation that covers a small region referred to as "Upper Cape" which covers four towns (mashpee, sandwich, falmouth, bourne). I have a direct competitor in each town who has a domain that contains the name of the town.
Being that I'd like to optimize across the four towns, I've decided to also purchase up 4 domain names that contain the towns. Rather than forward the domains to the upper cape domain, I've cloned instances of word press containing my data across 4 different sites that contain the towns.
As I got to thinking about this...I thought that it might actually hurt me...looking for insight and help as to how best to do this to optimize search (and be found) across these four towns. -
Hi IPIM!
Agree with the single domain vs. mult-domain approach, and you absolutely want to avoid duplicating content across multiple websites. I think you might find this article helpful:
-
if you have them (the domains) then your competitors don't...hang on to them and maybe something will come along one day that will warrent using them.
-
Again I appreciate you taking the time to respond and provide insight. I believe you answered my question, although I'm still not sure what to do about the other domains that we've registered.
-
its where do you draw the line, do you create a new site for every town? how unique would the content be across those domains? is that what the search engines really want in their search results, one brand buying multiple domains and dominating the results?
What your proposing above is not considered best practice, other people may disagree but its trying to game the results IMHO, and usually that will end in tears.
think about how you can target those towns within the confines of one domain.
www.yourdomain.co.uk/falmouth-jewelers
have that page contain a Google map with the location, contact details, offers and promotions unique to that location, maybe add a bit of local history, local client testimonials, local news.
Some good reading
https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/give-each-store-a-url/
http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/12/14/what-matt-cutts-says-about-local-search/
-
So is there little value in having domains that contain names that pertain to the industry / town?
I just watched a cool Moz video on watches...so using that as an industry so I can frame this in my mind correctly. If my company is Upper Cape Watch Company and I want to specifically target the towns of Falmouth, Mashpee, Sandwich and Bourne (where my competition might be Falmouth Jewelers, Mashpee Jewelers, Sandwich Jewelers and Bourne Jewelers) there's little value in having a domain for Falmouth Watch Company, Bourne Watch Company and so on?If I have 4 domains such as Falmouth/Mashpee etc. should I just forward them to the main site, forward with masking or without?
I am very grateful for your response and insight...I don't get paid for these efforts as it's a small non-profit...pretty much a labor of love that I'm tasked with since I work in the IT field.
-
Im not a fan of diluting authority across multiple domains, it just means having 4 x the effort and 4 x the budget.
I would go for www.yourdomain.com/town and then optimise each of those pages with highly relevant (unique), local and helpful information.
That way, all your outreach efforts are contained within the one domain and you authority flows across the site.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
GMB 1 listing for store , multiple additional listings for outside sales reps
I am working with a business that has setup their google my business as: 1 main GMB for store location with its physical address and unique phone - ie business name "ABC Lumber" 1 GMB account for the business name followed by the city name ie. "ABC Lumber Santa Monica" with an address in Santa Monica and different phone than the store location GMB Account but points to same website. Another GMB account for called. "ABC Lumber Redondo Beach" with an address and same phone as the Santa Monica GMB account but points to same website. So basically there is a main account which is the store, and then the sales reps want to create multiple GMB accounts of their own that are service area only accounts. Do you see a problem with this?
Local Listings | | lkbackus0 -
Local Optimization for Multiple Businesses Issues/Strategy
Hello Everyone, So we have a client with a geo-focused ‘sports’ site but they also have a second site they are using to promote the seasonal camps they run. Local demographics and traffic would be a priority and main source of traffic. We know it would be ideal to have all of it consolidated but in this case a separate site was needed. The camp site would be under a different Name but they do not really have a different physical location from the primary site. Assuming we can’t find a discernable different location we could use; from a local optimization perspective we have two questions: Does that mean that we shouldn’t venture into local listings that need an address and trying to rank for map results and instead shift focus to other local strategies (i.e. geo-relevant content, link acquisition….etc.)? – We don’t want to dilute or devalue the primary site at all but if possible would like to be able to come up for both. Should we avoid listing the address on the camp site as text for similar reasons? We know the same business could be listed for multiple locations but any suggestions on the opposite approach or input would be very appreciated. Please let us know if there is anything we could provide details for that might help. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you in advance. Best,
Local Listings | | Ben-R0 -
Multiple google places listing
can i submit few map listings in different address from my same user and on the same IP etc
Local Listings | | SEOLocal920 -
Multiple language in site links on SERP
hi there guys! I have this client that sells roofing reparation. His site is in two languages. In this image here, the green square are the results in english and red square in french. The picture is from a english SERP. What would you guys do to make sure that the SERP shows the right language to users on Google? It is very important for us to have both language separated. Our region is bilingual so, it's a big problem! The original language of the site is in french and I don't have any problem with this version. But when i checked the english side, there is this problem... mixing language in the SERP is not very good for my ROI. Thanks guys! toiture2.png
Local Listings | | TonikSEO0 -
Service for multiple loccations
Hi, OK so I have a page on my website which is 24 hour emergency electrician. Please take a look here https://www.otexelectrical.co.uk/windsor-24-hour-emergency-electrician Now I am ranking OK for Windsor emergency electrician however I would like to do the same for the multiple different locations I've I could create multiple URLs with different title and description meta information and submit using site map and web master tools however I'm aware that doing this I would be creating duplicate content. Would a canonical link for each location pointing to the same page be OK to go with and if so how do I go about doing this? Do I do this by linking each area listed to the same page using rel=canonical? Or if I'm thinking this all wrong how would you suggest I did this. I'm very new to local SEO so you will probably notice in google I did origonally create multiple pages of the same content with location changes in content, meta tags etc. I realise now this was the wrong way to go about doing this hence why I've deleted these and edited my .htaccess to 301 to the same page. The location links have dropped in the rankings. Any help would be very much appreciated. Cheers
Local Listings | | Peo19870 -
Multiple listing directory pages pointing back to the same local business profile
I've been tuning my SEO pages to cover cities, states, and metro areas for local businesses we have. I'm wondering if the same business showing up on multiple pages, because they can actually go out and service that area, has a negative impact on rankings. Does multiple pages on your site, pointing to the same content, hurt or help the ranking of either page?
Local Listings | | All-About-Labor0 -
Map-pack results for multiple locations in the same city
We just started working with a local business with several offices across Virginia. All of their locations have G+ local pages, and all rank pretty well in map-pack results for their respective cities....except for one location. Two of their offices happen to be in the same city. One ranks well in the local pack, and the other one is totally buried. This is the only location that doesn't rank in the map-pack for its target local queries. This company still has a TON of work to do to clean-up their citations and improve their G+ local pages across all the locations, but I'm wondering if there are any best practices for handling two locations within the same city...we obviously want both offices to rank in the map-pack, and don't want to do anything that might hurt the one that is currently ranking well. I'm confident that generally cleaning up their profile across the board, and adding new citations for all locations would be beneficial, but would appreciate any suggestions or best practices for getting both locations in this one city to perform well. Thanks!
Local Listings | | djreich0 -
Local domains vs. subfolders?
I am in the process of rebranding a B2B website for a UK company that has been established on a .net address for ten years. The CMS is Wordpress. The company has previously had localised content on .net/de, .net/au extensions for various regions where they have offices (US, Oz, various Europe.) I am getting varied and at times conflicting feedback from the creative agency, inhouse digital staff, and IT about the best way to proceed with the new website and in particular its future local language versions. Question 1: If we change the .net website to a .com address, will 301 redirects safeguard our SEO real estate? Question 2: we own the .com extension and have been using it for some back office stuff. It was purchased because it was advised that the .net did not carry much credibility in the US, is this correct? Question 3: If we change the .net to the .com which is hosted in the US, will we wipe our search rankings on Google for the UK and non-US locations? I saw this post and wondered:
Local Listings | | LConnect
http://moz.com/community/q/uk-rankings-disappeared-after-us-website-launch Question 4: is hosting the regional site best done on a local domain (we own a bunch) or does that not really matter? Question 5: If we use a WP plug in and just use subfolders for translating and localising content (US, Germany, Australia), what is the best way of serving that content for local PR? Sorry about the many questions 🙂 Guni0